Hamilton crashes out in Japanese FP1 while Vettel leads

Continuing from his dominant victory last year, Sebastian Vettel lead the first practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka this morning.

Sebastian Vettel led the first practice session in Suzuka today

However, Lewis Hamilton’s weekend got off to a terrible start, after crashing into the barriers at Degner, after setting only 9 laps. He ran wide, hit the gravel, and took off most of the front left suspension. He took no further part in the session.

Jenson Button had a simiar moment near the end of the session, but kept his car on track. Despite setting twice as many laps though, Button was 12th, half a second behind Hamilton in 5th.

Up front, Vettel led with a 1.32.585, though Mark Webber was well within striking distance, only 0.05 seconds behind his team-mate. Robert Kubica was half a second behind in 3rd. Adrian Sutil was another 0.5 slower in 4th.

Lewis Hamilton's car being removed from the track

Behind this group came the two Williams drivers, Schumacher, and Nick Heidfeld in 9th, 4 tenths quicker than Kamui Kobayashi.

The Ferraris were 11th and 13th, suggesting that they would be running heavy fuel loads. Vitaly Petrov struggled in 15th, while Buemi and Alguersuari were the slowest of the established teams. The 3 new teams were quite off the pace, with Heikki Kovalainen 4.3 seconds off Vettel’s time.

Jerome D’Ambrosio, in his first practice session in a Formula 1 car, was 22nd, and only 4 tenths off Timo Glock. Bruno Senna and Sakon Yamamoto filled the back row.